500 Words a Week - Max Outputs & Rising Tides

An important aspect in a good S&C programme to me is trying to increase our athlete’s maximal outputs. I think a lot of people will agree with that statement. However, the reason behind this importance goes much further than the obvious of just getting our athletes faster and stronger.

Side note - When I reference maximal outputs I am mainly referring to physical qualities such as maximal sprint speed and strength.

A reason beyond the obvious for improving our athlete’s maximal outputs is the concept of building a greater output reserve. This was first pictured clearly for me through some of Derek Hansen’s work, which I would suggest you look into if you haven’t already:

By training and increasing our athletes max speed, all of that athlete’s sub-maximal capabilities will be increased as well.  In the context of team sports this is huge, as our athletes are able to run at faster velocities for longer. Also, running at the same speed as before their max speed improved now places significantly less demand on our athletes. I believe this concept also transfers to strength and power increases, in that sub maximal efforts are less demanding on our athletes.

A second reason I’m a fan of increasing our athlete’s max abilities (again beyond the obvious), relates to the saying “a rising tide raises all ships”. Improving the maximal outputs of speed and strength, will in turn cause a subsequent rise in other physical abilities in which speed and strength are foundational abilities for. For example, by improving our max speed our acceleration increases, and from our acceleration improving our change of direction ability improves as after a turn or cut our athletes are able to reaccelerate better than before.

We also know increasing certain physical attributes such a strength has a protective effect against injury and large spikes in workload.

When taking this approach of improving maximal outputs for athletes we must be cognizant of a few important factors. The first one being that the path to improving maximal outputs must never take importance or interfere with sport practice. Secondly, the concept of diminishing returns, there will be a point when continually improving maximal outputs won’t lend itself to further increases in on-field performance, this concept relates more to increasing maximal strength than improving speed. In line with this, there will be a point when further increasing maximal outputs will hinder sport practice as our athletes will place more of their adaptive resources to improving maximal outputs than sport practice. Thirdly, technique should not be sacrificed for the goal of maximal outputs. In the pursuit of maximal speed, technique can be put to the side at times as we may be guilty of rushing through our list of running drills so that we have time for our athletes to perform the prescribed amount of sprints with adequate rest in-between. Take time to watch and analyze your athletes to ensure you are making technical improvements also.